NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Wednesday, October 16

Looking for Tuesday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:

Time for one of the most interesting Strand puzzles I have seen to date, as it will test your knowledge of a very specific piece of literature.

How To Play Strands

The New York Times’ Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It’s in beta for now, which means it’ll only stick around if enough people play it every day.

There’s a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you’ll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue.

You’ll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links two opposite sides of the board. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.

Be warned: You’ll need to be on your toes.

“Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones,” The New York Times notes. “Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] Bennett plans to throw Strands solvers curveballs every once in a while.”

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What Is Today’s Strands Hint?

Time to do the NYT hint and then my own hint after that:

How Poe-tic

And mine is:

Quoth

What Are Today’s Strands Answers?

Now we begin the answer portion of the program which is the spangram and the full list of the other answers, the spangram is:

THERAVEN

Here it is on the board:

Here are the rest of the answers:

• WEARY
• DREARY
• PONDERED
• MIDNIGHT
• WAKE
• NEVERMORE

So yes, this is all based on The Raven by Edgar Allen-Poe, and here is a sampling of the whole, which is a long poem, so I won’t quote it all here:

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!

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